THE ODYSSEY is epic. That’s the review. Roll credits.
Okay, fine, I’ll say more.
Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s foundational saga follows Odysseus, king of Ithaca, on his perilous journey home after the Trojan War. The film stars Matt Damon as Odysseus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Tom Holland as Telemachus, Zendaya as Athena, Robert Pattinson as Antinous, Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy, Charlize Theron as Calypso, and Himesh Patel as Eurylochus. Universal describes the film as a mythic action epic shot around the world using new IMAX film technology, bringing Homer’s story to IMAX screens for the first time.
And yes, it’s absolutely going to be in the Best Picture conversation. I’d be shocked if THE ODYSSEY doesn’t land there, and it could feasibly show up in 10-plus categories when all is said and done. Picture, Director, Cinematography, Production Design, Editing, Sound, Score, Costume Design, Visual Effects, Adapted Screenplay – pick a lane, or don’t. Nolan built a whole highway.
What surprised me most is how grounded it all feels. With this story, this scale, and this cast, it would have been easy for THE ODYSSEY to tip into comic-book-sized theatrics or mythological cosplay. It doesn’t. The casting choices are fantastic because nobody feels like they’re winking at the audience or playing “Greek myth icon” in quotation marks. These feel like people. Wounded people. Proud people. Violent people. Desperate people. People trying to survive the stories being told about them.
That’s what gives the film its power. You’re left asking whether these events really happened the way they are told – because in Nolan’s hands, they certainly could have – or whether they are the creation of a soldier trying to assuage the grief of a man who lost his way after seeing, and participating in, the brutality of war.
That’s the hook. Not just monsters. Not just gods. Not just ships and storms and impossible trials. The real question is what war does to a person after the battles are supposedly over. What does a man carry home? What does he invent so he can live with what he’s done? What does grief become when it has nowhere else to go but myth?
And now, the “controversy.”
The handwringing over this movie being “modernized” or “woke” is absolutely ridiculous. Crapping on a movie before you have watched one frame is the mindset of frog-brained, low-intellect trolls. Or worse, people who are mad because the casting or perspective doesn’t flatter their own dusty little worldview. Once again: art does not owe you anything. It does not owe you comfort. It does not owe you obedience. It does not have to arrive pre-approved by the loudest dopes on the internet.
Nolan proves, again, that he is one of our modern masters. We’ve known this for quite some time, but he keeps proving it anyway. Even the Nolan films that don’t get sung about constantly are still A-level swings in my book. He makes big movies that feel like they were built by someone with actual conviction. THE ODYSSEY is no different. It’s muscular, beautiful, haunted, and overwhelming in all the ways a giant theatrical experience should be.
Bottom line: THE ODYSSEY is one of the year’s best and most major films. It’s epic in scale, intimate in ache, and proof that Nolan can still take a story we think we know and make it feel newly alive. This is what the big screen is for.
Check out the trailer below and listen to the podcast from this week’s KVNU For The People Movie Show. You can access past shows by following this link.
